John Mueller

★★★ Why doesn’t a site always regain its ranking after rectifying a manual penalty?

After correcting a manual action, it is possible that a site does not exactly return to its previous position in search results, as it may have benefited from an unnatural advantage before. Once this ...

Dec 21, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does lifting a manual action really erase all traces within Google's algorithm?

If a manual action is applied to a site, it can submit a reconsideration request to Google. If the web spam team confirms that the issue has been resolved, they will remove the manual action. Google's...

Dec 21, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Google really crawl your site? Official answers to ground-level SEO questions

In this series of short videos, we address common questions from webmasters and SEO experts to help them understand aspects such as 404 errors, how crawling works, the URL structure of a site, or dupl...

Dec 21, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Should You Use Generic Disavow Files Containing Lists of Toxic Sites?

Some webmasters use "standard" disavow files containing numerous toxic sites, even when these sites don't necessarily link to their website. However, John Mueller has indicated that Google does not en...

Dec 18, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can an Expired SSL Certificate Really Not Affect Your Site's SEO?

Google recently sent a message to certain webmasters in Search Console indicating that their TLS certificate had expired and required renewal. However, John Mueller indicated in the same hangout as me...

Dec 18, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How Can You Tell If Your Site Has Moved to Google's Mobile First Index?

Regarding the Mobile First project, John Mueller indicated in a hangout that one way to know if a site has moved to the Mobile First index is to look at server logs and check Google's activity: if 80%...

Dec 18, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Is AMP traffic distorting your SEO statistics?

Tracking AMP pages may appear as external referrals to the main site. Technical adjustments are necessary to properly track traffic between AMP and standard pages....

Dec 15, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do Featured Snippets Really Hurt Organic Traffic?

Featured Snippets help directly answer user questions. Sites should aim to provide clear and relevant answers, reflecting changes in user search habits....

Dec 15, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is so-called 'fluff' SEO content really useless for ranking on Google?

Content must be useful and relevant for the user, not artificially inflated with keywords. Irrelevant content can be perceived as keyword stuffing....

Dec 15, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does rel=prev/next really compel Google to group your paginated pages?

Google can handle paginated pages as a set using rel prev/next, but each individual page can still appear in the results if it is relevant to a specific query....

Dec 15, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How can you smartly manage perishable content without cluttering Google’s index?

Noindex tags can be used on perishable content pages to remove them from the index. Consider using the unavailable_after tag to automate this process....

Dec 15, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do you really need to make your site accessible from the U.S. to get indexed by Google?

Googlebot mainly crawls from the United States, so if U.S. users cannot access your site, the content will not be indexed by Google....

Dec 15, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Do sitemaps really ensure that your pages get indexed?

A sitemap helps to structure URLs and assists Google in better understanding your site. However, it does not guarantee that all URLs will be indexed....

Dec 15, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does noindex truly kill the PageRank passed by your internal links?

Applying a noindex tag to a page tells Google not to index that page. If a page remains 'noindex' for too long, the links will also be ignored....

Dec 15, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Are your mobile internal links sabotaging your mobile-first indexing?

For sites using separate mobile URLs, mobile inter-page links must point to the mobile URLs. Structured data and hreflang links must also be based on mobile URLs....

Dec 15, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is it true that mobile-first indexing can decrease your traffic?

When Google transitions to mobile-first indexing, it generally does not result in any change in traffic from the user. Mobile URLs are shown to mobile users, while desktop URLs are displayed to deskto...

Dec 15, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can we really use noindex in the robots.txt file?

Google does not officially support a 'noindex' in the robots.txt file. It is recommended to use the 'noindex' tag on the pages themselves....

Dec 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does the disavow file really work, and how long should you wait for results?

The disavow file can be used to inform Google that certain external links should not be considered. This process can take several months to become fully effective....

Dec 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does hidden content on mobile really harm your SEO?

Hidden content in elements such as tabs or dropdown menus on mobile is treated similarly to desktop content, with no algorithmic penalty, but it should remain relevant to users....

Dec 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really ignore spam links, or should you still be cautious?

Google attempts to ignore low-quality spam links and focus on relevant signals and content to determine a site's position....

Dec 14, 2017 ⚡ Analysis available